Mia Jamric
Mr. Myers
English 9 2W
05/23/23
To Love and to Lose
When does one become a “woman”? Do they always have to endure the heartache of some sort? “Coming of age” is the process by which a girl becomes a woman and a boy becomes a man. This process also matures kids and helps them enter adulthood. Though this seems all too simple it is no easy process. It may include grueling stages and brutal traditions to finally be expected as an adult. Which entails even more responsibility and journeys that one must embark on. As one embarks on the journey of “coming of age” they experience many different feelings and adventures. One competent of the “coming of age” journey is experiencing love. In the book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green the
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Love is an experience when a person finds a partner who not only loves them romantically but also loves them for their personality and friendship. Love makes a person feel intimate and passionate about someone else. At the beginning of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green the main character Hazel was naive, immature, and inexperienced. This can be seen in a variety of instances in which Hazel seems to have a very immature take on many of her experiences. For example, Hazel would always find reasons for herself to not be seen as enough to spend time with or love. Throughout the book, it is easy to see that Hazel blames everything on her cancer instead of taking accountability and living her life to the fullest. At the beginning of the book Hazel states “Depression is a side effect of dying. Cancer is also a side effect of dying” (Green 3). This quote highlights what Hazel thinks about her life and how she feels that she is able to experience other normal teenage things. Hazel feels this way because she is young and immature. A specific example where Hazel experienced a “coming of age” component is when she was allowed to go to Amsterdam with Augustus. Before she left Hazel and her father had a talk and her father stated “You are not a grenade, not to us. Thinking about you dying makes us sad, Hazel, but you are not a grenade. You are amazing” (Green 103). This quote shows that not only Hazel experiences love from Augustus, but also her parents. Later in the story after her parents allow her to Amsterdam with Augustus she begins to mature and experience some normal teenage things. This makes Hazel understand that her life is worth living even though it is shorter than others. When Hazel losses Augustus she has to go through the stages of grief to find the love she felt and grow from it. In the article “Stages of Grief” it states “At this point, you may begin to make peace with the fact that you have lost